Speakers addressed a crowd gathered in the streets of Bnei Brak this week at a rally protesting the impending eviction of the Mesoras HaTorah yeshiva, led by Rabbi Shmuel Markowitz, from its longtime location on the Ponevezh Yeshiva hill.

The dispute traces back to a 1998 arbitration proceeding in a Bnei Brak beis din, convened after tensions escalated between the two sides over control of the yeshiva. The arbitration, overseen at the time with the involvement of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, Rabbi Michel Yehuda Lifkowitz, and Rabbi Nissim Karelitz, produced a ruling whose precise scope has been disputed by the parties ever since. After years of legal wrangling, Mesoras HaTorah petitioned Israel's secular courts to overturn the arbitration ruling, but lost at multiple levels, including before the Supreme Court. Last month, the Tel Aviv District Court ordered Mesoras HaTorah to vacate the Ponevezh hill compound by the end of September 2026.

Following the ruling, Mesoras HaTorah's leadership and hundreds of its students gathered for a special Tehillim assembly and message of chizuk at the yeshiva. This week's street rally represents an escalation of that protest, with organizers framing the court-enforced eviction as a violation of din Torah — arguing that a ruling from a beis din should not be overridden by a secular court, whatever the outcome of the original arbitration.